Is Doing Business with You Worth the Risk? Part 3

In Part 1, we discussed how a consumer is simply trying to calculate the amount of risk in choosing the wrong company to do business with and how they might avoid taking on too much risk. And in Part 2, we discovered the importance of sharing a signature story and how it can help fast forward the dating (convincing) and get to the marriage (sale) quicker.

There are several ways to help minimize risk for our customers, but we’ll touch on these few for now. We all know that customers buy from people they like and trust, and we know we have to earn that trust, but all things are not created equal.

Spot the Difference

When it comes to business, trust is different than it is in a personal relationship. In fact, Stephen M. R. Covey wrote a book called The Speed of Trust. It’s a powerful book about how trust is created and developed in a business situation. When we’re dealing with our homeowners, we’re the business, and they’re the consumer, so it’s called a “B-To-C” relationship (B2C for short). So how is building trust in a business capacity different than in a personal capacity?

Let’s take your best friend, for example. How did you decide to become friends with them? It likely wasn’t based on how well they performed their job. The odds are better that you used some other criteria in picking them as a friend to hang out with, have dinner with, and maybe even tell your problems to.

You probably befriended them because they have high character and have plenty in common with you. You don’t really care if they can repair your car, right? They don’t have to be a great mechanic to be your friend.

In business, however, we not only have to trust someone’s character but also their competence. While they may appear to be a nice guy, we really want them to be experts in their field.

Please Put Down the Knife

Let’s look at another example. If you’re married, you likely trust your wife very much. She’s a wonderful woman and a fantastic mother with high integrity, high character, honesty, and so on. Suppose you were diagnosed with brain cancer. No matter how much you trusted your wife’s integrity and character, you would not trust her to perform your brain surgery.

She wouldn’t be insulted because you’re not demeaning her performance as a mother or wife; you simply don’t trust in her ability to perform this operation because she has no experience in this very specific area. And besides, your life would be on the line.

You are looking for someone, in this case, to show complete competence in their line of work.

And this is what your homeowners are evaluating–competence.

So remember, it’s not enough just to be honest, to be on time, to be transparent, and all those things we typically do to earn trust. We also have to demonstrate high competency. In our sales process, you will see that we use specific trust-building techniques at various stages.

Some of them are to demonstrate your high character, like the Sarah Parker story. Others are for demonstrating your high competence. One way we do this is by showing them the industry standards and how our installation process exceeds those standards. This communicates to our homeowners that we are not looking to cut corners. We do not leave customers high and dry if a problem arises.

When we combine that display of competence with our high character, we are well on our way to earning trust. The higher the level of trust, the lower the risk for your homeowners. That’s what the goal is: to minimize risk in every way possible.

Another way to minimize risk is through your company’s guarantees and warranties. Your customer service guarantees, install quality, satisfaction guarantees, etc. In our online training, we show how to use your guarantees in your sales process to help minimize the risk in the mind of your homeowner.

Going Once, Going Twice, SOLD!

With our signature story, we prove some amazing things that we’ve done for our homeowners.

With our display of character and high competence, we show this is not our first rodeo, and we’ve remained in business for a long time because of our dedication to excellence.

And with our guarantees, we remind them that they have a safe way forward should anything go wrong.

That sends a very powerful message that there’s no risk here. And when the homeowner feels something is nearly risk-free, then saying yes to you is as natural as breathing.